


Sweeter Than Strawberries

by RollanWasHere



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comfort, Crying, Fear, Galra Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Kisses, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (voltron) has synesthesia, M/M, Protectiveness, Synesthesia, Team Voltron Family, Torture, keith has liked him since before this fic guys, keith's voice tastes like strawberries, klance, lance almost DIES, lance is homesick, they're bad at feelings, they're both giant messes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 04:55:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10297988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RollanWasHere/pseuds/RollanWasHere
Summary: Lance has this thing called synesthesia. It’s basically where you can see and taste words. And his entire team knew. It took a little bit, a little over a quintant, for them to get used to him pointing out what they felt like based on the tastes or colors of their voices.He was just glad they wouldn’t question him anymore when he said stuff like “Damn, Hunk, you upset or something? Your voice tastes like soggy waffles.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> (I did very minimal research. Literally. Just googled it real quick. This could totally be an inaccurate representation of synesthesia, but I’m going with it.)

Lance had always loved the way his team's words had tasted. He always loved the colors that their words showed him. He loved the way Hunk’s words were always a warm yellow and tasted like pancakes. He loved that Shiro’s words were gray and tasted like blueberries. He loves that Pidge’s words was an electrifying green and tasted like sweet cherries. He loved that Allura’s words were light pink and tasted like fruit punch. He loved that Coran’s words were a cream orange and tasted like sweet vanilla cake. 

But the words he loved most of all were Keith’s, not that he would ever tell him that. Keith’s words were a beautiful red. Red like a matador's flag. Red like those dumb heart stickers on valentine's day. Red like the blood pumping through the heart. Keith’s red words tasted like the sweetest strawberry Lance has ever had. Lance lives on if only for the fact that he get’s to hear Keith’s voice every day. 

He missed Keith's voice as he laid there, staring out the giant window in the control room, thinking of Earth. There were lots of things he missed about Earth. He missed his mom. He missed her hugs, her sweet mellow orange voice, he missed her cooking. He missed his siblings. He missed his little sister Caroline and her lilac voice. He missed his older brother Danny and his sharp lime colored voice. He missed his little brother Lucas and his citrus tasting yellow words. He missed his brat of a younger sister Olivia with her fuschia voice. He missed his dad’s strong blue. 

He missed the park in his neighborhood where he spent most of his childhood. He missed those dumb kiddie swings meant for little babies that all teens got stuck in at least once. He missed the slide that was so twisty that kids broke their ankles trying to climb it. He missed tracing the words “Lance McClain was here” that he carved into the ugly yellow tube connecting the two little play places when he was thirteen. He missed the sound of cackling children and fond voices of parents. 

He missed the beach. He missed every wave hitting the shore, every sunset, the smell, the taste of salt in the air, he missed walking to the burger shop on that beach at three in the afternoon as people played and relaxed with the waves. He missed digging his toes into the sand as his phone in his back pocket rang. If he closed his eyes, he could almost picture it. The ring in his pocket would be his mother, or Hunk because it always was. He would answer saying, “Hello?” In that silly, overly excited voice he had always used when picking up the phone.

He even missed the Garrison. He missed the stinky, pheromone covered boys locker room. He missed the room he shared with Hunk. He missed the conversations he would have with Pidge and Hunk in the simulator that he always ended up failing even though he tried his hardest. He missed straining his ears, trying his hardest just to hear Keith’s conversation with Shiro from halfway across the room. He missed talking smack about Keith, even though he still did that, it wasn’t the same. He missed Iverson yelling at him but only a little bit. 

He missed so much of Earth. Even as he sat in the control room of an alien ship, even knowing that he was part of the reason that Earth was safe from the galra, tears streamed down his face.Voltron was amazing, Voltron was an adventure he never knew he needed, but it wasn’t home. A home was his mother’s cantaloupe tasting voice. A home was the waves, the grocery store, the library, the garrison. A home was Earth and even if he and Hunk spent hours at night just talking about the things they would do once they got back, he knew it would never come true. They all knew it. They all knew they could never go home. 

It was the sliding sound the door made that jolted Lance out of his glum. He rubbed his eyes vigorously. He didn’t know who it was, but he wasn’t turning around. He knew his eyes were an ugly shade of red from crying. 

“Lance what the hell are you doing?” They asked. Lance recognized that red voice. He would recognize that voice anywhere. It was Keith and Keith brought his voice and that in and of itself was comforting. Because Keith’s voice was also home for Lance, even if he pretended to hate his self-proclaimed rival. They both knew he didn’t actually hate Keith or his mullet. 

“Staring into the abyss and wondering if this is what purgatory looks like,” Lance joked, ignoring the way his voice cracked. He entwined his fingers together, focusing on the stars ahead rather than Keith’s voice getting steadily closer and the footsteps coming his way.

“Oh man,” Keith said, half smiling. “Sounds like you’re having a blast.” Lance offered a laugh at that. It wasn’t often Keith made jokes but when he did, Lance made sure to laugh, even if it was something as dumb as a pun. They sat in silence together, something that was, shockingly, a regular occurrence. It had all started when Keith showed up at his bedroom door one night and sat down on his bed without even saying a simple greeting. Lance remembered standing there, feeling awkward, before moving to sit next to the broody young adult. They hadn’t said anything then, they didn’t say anything now.

Until they did. It was Keith that broke the silence, filling the air with an almost sickeningly sweet strawberry. It was a taste Lance almost didn’t recognize as worry since Keith kept it out of his voice for the most part.

“You, uh,” He started, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “You okay?” Lance smiled at the lame attempt to comfort him. Keith was awkward. Always had been. He was awkward when he was amongst the team, he was awkward one on one. He was awkward with Shiro, even though he practically worshiped the ground their leader walked on. He was awkward when eating with the rest of them. He was awkward when training. The only time he wasn’t awkward when he was arguing, by himself, or in battle.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just missing home.” 

Lance hadn’t meant to say that last part. His honesty had surprised himself, had surprised Keith too. He had just meant to leave it as is. Had meant to leave it at the simple “yeah” and returned to their comfortable silence. He cheeks flushed, so he ducked his head and turned away a bit. He was waiting. Waiting for Keith’s voice to liquefy and flow with the mirth that came from his embarrassing statement. It surprised him when Keith’s voice dulled with a bit of sadness, the strawberry flavor souring.

“Same.”

It was such a simple word, but filled with so much unhappiness that Lance had to turn his head. He just had to get a look at Keith’s face as he spoke. If he was being honest, Lance was surprised. Keith didn’t have any family, so what was there to miss? Though there are other things, Lance couldn’t imagine not missing his family.

“What do you miss about Earth?” Lance asked, voice soft. He cleared his throat, scratching his head in order to give his nervous hands something to do. It made him nervous sometimes, talking to that strawberry sweet voice. He wasn’t really sure why, only knew that none of the others’ voices made him nervous, ever. 

“I miss a lot of things. I miss my plane. I miss the sunset dipping under the hills in the desert I was staying in before all this. I miss my bike. I miss sneaking into Iverson’s office late at night, after I got kicked out, and writing some bullshit note on the corner of important documents in this ugly, smudgy blue pen I kept in a specific drawer in that abandoned shack I was staying in,” Keith said, leaning against his hands. That last one got Lance to laugh, the kind of laugh that bubbles up your throat and forces its way out of your lungs. It had been a surprise to hear stoic, never-feel-any-emotions-ever, Keith say he’d done something like that. 

“What about you?” Keith said, cheeks flushing pink and voice taking on an embarrassed sweet taste, red paling in comparison to the normally vibrant red. Lance sobered at that question. What did he miss? More like, where to start? He didn’t really know, but he missed his family the most, so he started there. 

He told Keith about his mom, his dad, his siblings. He told Keith all about Olivia’s dumb dream to become a barbie princess. He told Keith about Danny’s girlfriend, and the kid they were planning to have. He told Keith about Caroline’s aspiration to become a pop-rock singer and all of the work she forced herself to do in order to get there. He talked about how Lucas got his hand stuck in a vase when he was fourteen. He told Keith about his mother’s voice, her cooking, how she would stay with him until he fell asleep when he had a nightmare. He told Keith about his dad’s strong blue, how it always made Lance feel like he could do whatever he set his mind to. 

He told Keith everything he missed about Earth. Lance rambled a lot, but Keith would keep him on track by asking questions about something he’d said now and then. By the time Lance ran out of things to say, they were both yawning. Lance leaned against the control panel’s support beams, Keith less than a few inches away. 

“Why’d you come out here, anyway?” Lance asked.

“I couldn’t find you, so I figured you were out here. Since you never go to the training room,” Keith said, tiredness making the red of his voice duller, but in a good way. Lance ignored that comment, sniffing indignantly. “We should probably go to bed.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed. “But I don’t want to get up.” 

“Me neither.”

Lance wasn’t sure when they fell asleep, but it was one of the best rests that he had since they started the beginning of the Voltron ‘almost die every single day’ adventure. He dreamed of strawberry sweet voices and the color red.

\-----  
When he woke up, it was to the taste of sweet cherries and electrifying green. He didn’t know why Pidge was in his room but he didn’t really care. He nuzzled his face into his pillow and sighed. 

“This is the greatest day,” Pidge said, a quick click following their statement. Lance could practically hear the smirk in their voice. The next voice that spoke was warm yellow, tasted like fluffy pancakes. Hunk.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Keith will kill you!” Hunk said, the warm yellow darkening in worry.

“The angry emo child will never know if you don’t tell him,” Pidge offered, sounding like they didn’t really care either way. There was another click. Lance fluttered his eyes open, if only just to glare at them. Pidge was smiling, rather widely in fact. They had their arms behind their back, and that immediately sent alarms blaring in Lance’s head. He ignored those alarms in favor of looking around. 

He definitely wasn’t in his room. Huh. He blinked at the window behind Pidge, where stars were staring right back at him, and memories flooded into his mind from the previous night. When did he lay down? He looked down, blinking at the situation. Well, that explains the pillowy feeling he felt earlier. He was laying on Keith.

Wait.

He was _laying on Keith_.

It wasn’t the first time he fell asleep and woke up next to Keith. He was a cuddler, which meant that he and Keith often ended up in that kind of situation. It was the fact that Pidge and Hunk were staring at him that freaked him out. The moments he spent with the strawberry sweet voice were precious and intimate. Or at least, Lance thought so. He didn’t want to share those moments with other people, even the people on team Voltron.

He jumped up, letting out a screech before clamping a hand over his mouth. He may not want them to know, but he still didn’t want to wake Keith up. Pidge cackled in their very green, very bright, very prominent cherry tasting, very distinctly Pidge like way. 

He heard Allura giggle from the other side of the room and turned his head to look at her. The rest of the team was there with her. Shiro was covering up his laughs with his hand, but when Lance looked at him he cleared his throat and looked away. Allura was openly giggling and Coran was smiling at him amusedly. He could even hear Hunk laughing at this point.

“Betrayal!” Lance cried, turning on Hunk. He over exaggerated his voice so that the big man would know he was just messing with him. “You’re supposed to back me up! How cruel of you! I’m dying because everyone’s ganging up on me! Woe is me!”

Hunk just smiled, hands in his pocket. Lance huffed at the lack of response, sniffing indignantly and turning his nose up in the air. After a minute or so of pretending to be offended, he glanced down at Keith, who had turned over fitfully in his sleep. He was reaching out, arms out to the sides like he was missing someone. 

Lance’s breath hitched in his throat, face heating up a startling red. He felt the flush spread to his ears and down his neck but he couldn’t do anything about it. Keith was reaching out for _him_ and that was adorable. 

“Oh great,” Pidge muttered, still smiling. “He’s broken.”

“I’m not broken!” Lance said, covering his face. His shout must have roused Keith because he said up with a groan. He sat Indian style, scratching his cheek with a confused face.

“Where the fuck am I?” He asked, voice hoarse from sleep. His hand moved to brush his hair out of his face. Lance cleared his throat. Keith’s morning voice was such a dark shade of red, it was almost black. It tasted like bitter strawberries, which was strange. Lance enjoyed the taste, though he tended to prefer sweet things.

“We fell asleep in the control room last night,” Lance mumbled, once he had Keith’s attention. “Nice bed hair, mullet.”

Keith frowned, brows furrowing. Friend time was over. It was time to go back to being “rivals”, but Keith’s mind clearly couldn’t process that after just waking up. Lance feared he would say something about the night before, but then a flash of recognition went through Keith’s eyes, and Lance’s shoulders relaxed. 

“You’re one to talk, cargo pilot. Go look in the mirror,” Keith said. Though it was a low blow, Lance’s heart twinged, and Keith’s words had been growled out, there had been no anger in the retaliation. His words were just as vibrant a red as ever, as opposed to the startling black that was anger. 

Lance gasped, suddenly, remembering that he hadn’t done his night routine the last night. Keith gave him a strange look, one that asked “did that really hurt your feelings?”, so lance stood up immediately, panic etched into his face for dramatic effect. 

“I forgot my night routine!” He yelled, running back to his room. Forgetting one night wasn’t a bad thing, as long as it didn’t become a habit, and Lance really didn’t want it to become a habit. He liked having silky smooth skin, thank you very much. 

He ran through the hallways, stopping at the first door that he came across once he reached the area of the castle designated for bedrooms. When they had first chosen their rooms, he had called dibs on the very first one to show up, saying that he was lazy and didn’t want to walk all the way down the corridor. No one had really cared enough to argue with him, settling for just giving him unimpressed looks. 

He pressed his hand to the sensor, stepping through the door once it had dematerialized. It closed behind him right after. He sighed, holding his cheeks with his hands and looking towards the ceiling. He leaned against the, now solid, door in the darkness of his room. He truly was concerned about his routine, but mostly that was just an excuse to get out of there. 

Lance wasn’t really sure what was wrong, but he felt like crap. He felt like something was going to go wrong today and it was going to be his fault. He was going to mess up on a mission or something like he always does and it was going to go badly. 

He shuffled to the connected bathroom, feeling the weight of the entire universe and hoping that falling into his normal routine would make him feel better. He pressed the button for the lights and stood in front of the sink, staring into the mirror for a minute before sighing. He picked up the bottle of alien skin care product that he got from that weird space mall and poured some into his hand. He spent the next few minutes rubbing it into his face, taking refuge in the feeling of the chilly blue gel sinking into his skin. 

As he was finishing up, there was a knock at his door. He poked his head out of the door of the bathroom to stare at the entrance to his room as Keith let himself in. Lance scoffed. Why bother knocking if you’re just going to let yourself in? Keith squinted into the darkness of Lance’s room, looking for him probably. He touched the sensor for the lights, eyes finding Lance’s.

“Oh,” Keith said. “There you are.”

Keith’s normally vibrant red was lighter. It was like he was happy, but Lance knew better. The normally vibrant red is much much lighter than the one he was seeing now. Keith’s red was very rarely lighter. It was either darker, dull, or the normal red that it was fifty percent of the time. This time it was light, but not light enough to be considered happy. More like, he was content, rather than happy. His voice was a mellow sweetness, this time. Usually, it’s very prominent. 

Lance looked away, ducking back into the bathroom to finish his routine. Keith came over and leaned on the doorway. They stood in comfortable silence like they normally do. 

Once he was done, he turned to Keith with a smile. Keith smiled back, albeit smaller than Lance’s wide grin. Keith looked up from Lance’s eyes and laughed. 

“You still haven’t fixed your hair?” Keith asked, smiling wider.

“Speak for yourself,” Lance joked, reaching up to run his hands through the silky black hair. “Just look at you. Do you even own a brush?” Keith just laughed, playfully hitting his hand away. Lance turned around to look in the mirror in order to fix his hair properly. He basically just ran a hand through it. It’s not like he has much hair to fix in the first place. He peered at Keith’s hair through the mirror, lips pursed in concentration. Keith blinked at him.

“What?” He asked.

“Nothing, really,” Lance said. “But I’ve just noticed your hair. It’s gotten longer. I wonder how it would look in a braid?” Keith shrugged noncommittally. 

“Dunno,” He replied. “Haven’t ever tried.” Lance hummed, moving to dig through the cabinet under the sink. After a few minutes he said “ah ha!” and pulled out a red hair tie. Coincidentally, it was about as red as Keith’s voice and had a little strawberry charm on it. It looked like a hair tie made for children on Earth, but bigger. Keith stared at him, one eyebrow raised in a silent question. Lance shook his head, ushering Keith out of the bathroom.

He sat the strawberry boy on his bed, facing the wall. Keith looked back at him, but Lance pushed his head back towards the wall.

“What the hell are you doing, Lance?” Keith asked, sounding more confused than anything.

“I’m gonna braid your hair. Now shut up and keep your head still,” he responded, putting the hair tie between his teeth. 

He gathered Keith’s hair, dividing it into three sections. He crossed them over each other over and over until he got to the bottom. Once he was there, he took the hair tie out of his mouth and tied it off. Then he took a step back and smiled at his work. Keith’s hair had successfully been put into a loose braid. A loose braid because tight braids are gross. Lance’s smile softened at the sight of the little strawberry charm standing out in the open.

Keith reached back, brushing his fingers lightly on the braid. He made a gentle humming noise, brushing his fingers over the fine strands. Then he turned to face Lance, cheeks slightly pink. When he spoke, the strawberry taste was faint but sweeter than usual. His normal fiery red lighter, not pink yet but getting there.

“Thanks,” He said, smiling a little. Lance looked away from his almost pinkish red and smiled softly. 

“No problem,” He said, voice low and warm. Only after a minute did he look back at Keith, who was already looking at him. Keith’s eyes were warm, inviting. A look he didn’t often support. It was refreshing in comparison to his normally battle-hardened and nervous eyes. Sometimes, Keith’s eyes expressed more than the red of his voice or the taste of bittersweet strawberries. 

They stared at each other for a bit. After a while of that, Keith turned his eyes away from what seemed much more intimate than it should have been. 

“Listen,” he said, wringing his wrists nervously. “Lance, I--

Alarms blared through the castle.

\-----  
Shiro stood at the head of the group, going through information he thought was important to know for the battle. He got all of the known information from Allura, and in turn gave all of the paladins a quick run-through of the important stuff. After that, he assigned them their positions. It was the galra. It was always the galra. Always.

“They’ve captured an entire civilization and put them into cells in the main ship, so we can’t just go in, guns blazing,” he said, arms crossed, voice giving off a calm gray. Lance stood next to Keith, which wasn’t too strange. Except for the fact that Keith had a braid instead of his normal, everyday ponytail, which was embarrassing in and of itself. 

“We could shut down their ship?” Pidge suggested, pushing up their glasses.

“What do you mean?” Shiro asked.

“We can probably access the main power source, if we can get Pidge inside, and shut it down long enough to get the prisoners out and into the castle, right? Afterward, go Voltron, destroy the ship, and then wahoo! Voltron saves the day again!” Lance said, catching on to Pidge’s thought process. Pidge sent him a smile. Keith gave him a weird look, but he ignored it.

“Yeah, good idea Pidge, Lance,” Shiro said, gray turning slightly lighter in his pride for them being his team. Lance felt his own pride swell in his chest. It wasn’t often that Shiro praised him for something good, most of the time it was Shiro telling Lance to do better. To be better in battle. 

Not saying Lance didn’t try, or that he didn’t work his ass off, he just hadn’t been a pilot as long as Shiro or Keith. Neither had Pidge or Hunk, and they still got praised more than he did. Then again, it was usually Lance who made the already big problems bigger problems, if Keith didn’t just suddenly decide to run off into battle and do his own thing. 

Lance felt a familiar twinge in his heart, mind suddenly swirling with thoughts of blasters, sharpshooters, and seventh wheels. Gently, somewhere at the back of his mind, he felt Blue’s ice cold, yet somehow still warm, voice tell him that all of those feelings were liars. It made him smile a bit. He pushed all of it down, focusing back in on what Shiro was saying. It wasn’t the time to get depressed, he could do that later. This was important information. 

“Pidge will get to the ship using the green Lion’s cloaking device,” Shiro was saying, arms at his sides now. “Lance, you and Keith will go down to the cells and free the prisoners. Pidge, give them a ride. The lions can help me on the surface against the galra fleets. Hunk and I will protect the castle as much as we can while you are all doing your jobs.”

Lance scoffed, crossing his arms and jutting his hips to the side. 

“Don’t get in my way, mullet,” He said, voice harsh. 

“Why don’t you watch out for yourself before you comment on others, Lance,” Keith said, scowl returning to his face.

“Get to your lions!” Shiro barked, already looking one hundred percent done with their petty arguing. Lance watched as the others ran to their zip lines. He was about to follow when Keith caught his arm. When he spoke, his normal red was light pink, a color Lance had never seen before in someone's words. It tasted like sugar. So sweet even he could hardly stand, but he couldn’t get enough of it. He didn’t know what that meant.

“Lance, after this, we-- uh, we really need to talk,” Keith said, avoiding eye contact. Lance was confused, but he didn’t question it.

He only nodded, saying a simple, “Okay.”

They ran to meet up with the rest of the team. 

\-----  
It hadn’t been hard to get into the castle. For the most part, they all got in relatively easy. Keith and Lance went with Pidge in the green Lion. 

Pidge stopped her lion at the hangar, quickly hacking into the system enough to get the hangar door open without being noticed. They crawled out of the green lion’s jaws, silently thankful. Green was still big, but in comparison to the blue, yellow, or black lions she was relatively small. It was cramped with two people and a bean pole in there. After they were all in and the door was closed, the green lion went to join the others in the wait for the galra fleets.

Pidge glanced back at Keith and Lance, sharing a nod before separating to go their own ways. The pair rushed off down a hallway, Shiro’s voice in their ears telling them when to stop and hide from the sentries or telling them where to go, based on the map Pidge sent him before they got onto the ship.

It was comforting to have his leaders voice in his ears, even if it was slightly more sour than usual in his nervousness. All of their voices were comforting, honestly, even Hunk, who’s voice was such a dark shade of yellow and tasted like three-month-old pancake batter. Lance took refuge in their voices. 

They turned a corner just as Shiro said “stop! _stop! stop! stop!_ ” They came face to face with two galra soldiers who were guarding the door to the prison cells. In reality, they were about twenty feet away, but Lance’s heart pumping in his chest said otherwise. 

There was a beat of silence before the galra soldiers took out their blasters, Lance and Keith diving behind a pillar. Keith grabbed his bayard, turning his shield on. He shared a look with Lance.

“I’ll cover you,” Lance said, voice surprisingly serious. Keith nodded, jumping out into the open, shield covering him. Lance formed his bayard too, firing at some sentries coming their way. By the time the team of four sentries were down, Keith was already done with the two galra soldiers. 

Lance felt the pride swell in his chest for his friend and grinned. Keith grinned too, turning his shield off.

“Good work, guys,” Shiro’s voice said over the comms. “Pidge is about to open the doo--Ump! Pidge is about to open the door.”

“You okay Shiro?” Keith asked as Lance jogged up to his side. 

“Yeah,” Shiro said, voice colored lighter with sarcasm. “Just under enemy fire. No, I’m totally fi--UGH. Yeah, fine. Just get going.”

Lance snickered to himself as the doors to the prison opened. He thanked Pidge quickly, who said an ‘of course’, before running to the first cell and banging open the lock, Keith at his heels. He pushed open the door. He ignored how they looked like Earth prisons and how his stomach churned uncomfortably. This wasn’t the time to get sick.

He looked inside the cell and frowned. The species inside stared at him, unmoving. 

“We’re here to help,” he said, knowing the translator on his helmet would make them understand him. “We’re paladins of Voltron. There is a castle ship outside of this one that you can escape into until we get you home.”

They didn’t move. He sighed, moving onto the next cell. Keith grabbed his shoulder.

“Hey,” Keith said, frantic. “Something’s up. They’re not coming out of their cells.” Lance frowned,

“For you too?” He asked, biting his lower lip between his teeth. Pidge’s voice greeted them over the coms, dark green and nervous. 

“What’s going on, guys?” They asked, the sound of clicking keys in the background. 

“They aren’t coming out of their cells.”

“What?”

“Yeah, they--

“Lance, look out!”

Lance barely registered Keith’s voice, light red and frantic, sweet strawberry an array of flavors, before he was tackled to the ground. There was a weight on him for only a split second before it was gone and he was being hauled onto his feet. He blinked, groaning, trying to get his focus back. He was seventy-five percent sure he did not have a concussion. In his blurry vision, he saw Keith stand in front of him, covering him in order to give him some time to adjust to their surroundings again. 

After a minute and a half, Lance finally understood what was going on. The prisoners they broke out of the cells were surrounding them, looking menacing with their angry glares and weapons. When did they get weapons? Lance sucked in a breath, grabbing Keith’s wrist. Keith glanced at him but didn’t move out of his ready position, brows furrowed. 

“Why are you attacking us?” He asked, voice strained. Lance couldn’t process why Keith’s voice sounded so pained. The species only hissed at them. Lance didn’t know why they were attacking, but he did know that they had to get out of there that minute. 

“Lessgo,” He slurred out, stumbling forward, pulling Keith’s arm. Keith seemed to get what he was doing, cause he slipped his hand forward until they were holding hands and rushed forward, this time Lance being the one who was being pulled. Lance let Keith lead him, realizing he hadn’t really known where he was going. 

“Lance has a concussion,” He heard Keith say. Did he? He didn’t feel like it. “And the prisoners attacked us. Cover our lions so we can get the fuck out of here.”

“What?!” Hunk’s voice screaming in his ear made him wince.

“Noyso layod,” Lance said, tongue feeling heavy in his mouth for some reason. His head swam. What was he doing again? He looked up at Keith’s back, hoping it would clear his mind to see something familiar, and gasped. There, bleeding from the red to the white of his paladin armor was a patch of blood on his shoulder. He yanked them to a stop, almost making Keith tumble over by the force of it against his running. 

“Yous fleeding,” he said, quietly.

“What?” Keith asked, resuming the running.

“Yours showders needing!” Lance slurred, a little louder this time, trying to pull them to a stop again but not having the energy to do so. His head was starting to spin. Where those stars? But he thought they were inside a ship?

Keith jerked to a stop, Lance running into him from behind, not being able to stop in time. He jerked back, about to berate him, as best he could with his head pounding, but he saw what made Keith stop. 

The “prisoners” stood, weapons in hand, guarding the exit. Lance turned, dread filling his stomach as he watched galra guards run towards them from where they’d been. They were stuck. 

“What’s going on?” Pidge’s voice came over the comms. 

“We’s trasppeds!” Lance cried, suddenly feeling nauseous. 

“What?!”

“We’s trasp--

“It doesn’t matter!” Keith said, backing towards the wall, pushing Lance behind him. “Lance, to your left!” Out of habit, Lance jolted up his arm to block whatever it was on his left, the shield on his armor activating automatically. 

He heard the telltale ‘clink’ of a bullet on a shield and winced. Then slipped. On nothing but air. Wow, the floor was really clean. How often did galra clean their floors? Do you think they have robots for that? They should get Pidge to repurpose some for the castle, so the paladins didn’t have to do it. It was usually Lance who got stuck with Coran and the cryotubes anyway.

“Lance,” Keith snapped. “Get up!”

“Rijit, riht,” Lance said, trying to sit up. His hand slipped on the floor again, causing him to fall back. He blinked up at the ceiling, a dumb look on his face. There was black dimming the edges of his vision, and it was much more distracting than Keith’s vicious red and sour strawberry tasting voice, snarling threats at their enemies. 

Abruptly, like nothing ever existed in the first place, it stopped.

\-----  
Lance blinked his eyes open, not having to wait for his eyes to adjust since it was so dark. For a moment he wondered where he was. It didn’t look like his bedroom at home, where he was sure he went to sleep the night before. For one thing, the glow stars that he put on the ceiling of his room as a kid were missing. For another, the room was mauve purple and he was on a cement floor. 

Then he turned his head to the side and saw Keith. Bloody, beaten, black eyed Keith. Lance gasped, suddenly remembering the mission. The mission he’d caused them to fail. He tried to sit up but did it too fast. His head spun out of control. He gripped his hair, nails scraping against the cement, trying to ground himself. The dizziness seemed to last much longer than it should have.

He crawled over to the sleeping paladin. (Later, he denies slipping, tripping, and falling on his face three times in the process.) Or, at least, Lance thought he was asleep. Keith looked troubled, brows furrowed, frown in place, chest moving up and down slowly. He was leaning against the metal bars of the prison they were in. More of the white of his armor was stained red with blood. It looked bad. It looked disgusting.

He was hit with a wave of nausea and sat back, groaning. He knew how Hunk felt all the time, now. Oh, hey. That was an idea. He crawled over to the corner and threw up in the little trash can that the prison had provided. What nice people. Once he was done, he sat back on the heels of his feet.

“What to do now? Keith is out of commission. The comms don’t work. I’ve got nothi--

He was cut off by a groan. Keith’s groan, to be more exact. He turned to look at the red paladin again and grinned, feeling relief flood his system. 

“Keith!”

Keith squinted at him, hand moving to cradle his head. He peered around the room.

“Lance?” He asked, then coughed. “You okay?” 

“Not sure,” Lance replied, feeling a bit relieved now that he knew his strawberry boy was okay. 

His?

Not the time.

“Do you still have a concussion?” He asked, curling into himself and flinching. Lance tilted his head. He had a concussion? That would explain a lot. Lance winced as a sharp pain stabbed through his mind. 

Footsteps started towards their cell, starting out quiet and getting louder as they came closer.Keith stood, using the wall to steady himself. Keith shakily pulled him by the back of his armor toward the back of the cell and huddled with him in the corner. Keith was crouching in front of him, one hand on the ground to stabilize himself, blocking his view of outside the cells. Were they playing a game? Lance likes games. 

Lance threw his arms around the red paladin’s shoulders, nuzzling into that deceivingly soft hair Keith had. He giggled to himself, feeling Keith choke on air.

“Wow your mullets actually really soft. I didn’t expect that.”

“How touching,” a voice said, words thick with malice. It was dark purple, almost black, and tasted like sludge. Lance did not like this person. He’d only heard this voice once or twice before. He wasn’t sure where, only knew that every time he did something went horribly wrong. He peeked around Keith’s shoulder to stare at the source of the voice. It was an old woman with yellow glowing eyes, purple skin, and pink marks down her cheeks. Her white hair went down close to the ground, that’s how long it was. 

“Haggar,” Keith hissed, voice venomous and angry. Oh, so that’s who this was. “What do you want, space witch?!”

“Really, the red one’s have always been my favorite to work with,” She said, smiling evilly. “But the blue one’s are good too.”

“Don’t you touch him,” Keith hissed, voice getting even darker. Lance wasn’t really sure how dark his voice could get, but it was gradually getting darker and darker and that was worrisome. 

Suddenly, Keith collapsed. He writhed on the floor, but not in a good way. He was gasping for air, clutching the open wound on his shoulder. He curled in on himself, bringing his knees to his chest. Lance stumbled over to him, catching Keith’s open hand in his.

“Keith! Keith, what’s wrong?! Is it one of your injuries?! What did you do, Haggar?!” He yelled, directing the last question to the space witch standing on the other side of the cell bars, hands holding a glowing dark purple sphere. She smirked, showing off her sharp teeth. The sphere disappeared, and so did Keith’s gasping. 

He looked down at his friend again and wanted to cry in relief. Keith was staring up at him, confusion in his eyes, but okay. The wound on his shoulder ripped open while he was moving, and there was a puddle of blood slowing forming on the ground. Lance panicked. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw Haggar raise her hands and the dark magic sphere appeared again. He watched as the bullet wound on Keith’s shoulder closed and the blood stopped. Then, the black eye disappeared too, along with all of his other injuries. He turned, giving the witch a quizzical look, knowing that she wasn’t just doing it out of the goodness of her heart. She probably didn’t even have a heart.

“Don’t be foolish, blue paladin. I heal him only because if I’m going to experiment on him, he must be in perfect condition,” she said, the sludge in her voice liquefying in her mirth.

“Experiment?!” he growled out, ignoring the way his head was beginning to pound.

“Your voice gives me a headache. Why don’t you sleep? I’ll even heal your concussion,” She said and, with a flick of her wrist, he was falling to the floor. 

It was quiet.

\-----  
When Lance woke up next, Keith wasn’t in the cell with him anymore and there was a galra soldier guarding the door. Not only that, he could no longer feel Blue’s energy. He gasped and stood up. He rushed over to the bars and grasped them in his hands, right next to the galra soldier.

“Hey, rat face,” Lance said, searching for Blue’s presence in his mind. “Where’s Keith?” The guard didn’t answer him. He didn’t even look at him. He stood stock still, blaster in hand, staring at the wall in front of him. 

No matter how Lance searched he couldn’t connect to blue, and that was worrying. He couldn’t feel Blue’s ice cold, reassuring presence, and that made him freak out. If he couldn’t get to Blue, he couldn’t get to the others. If he couldn’t get to Blue, he couldn’t get to Keith. If he couldn’t get to Blue, he couldn’t get help.

He grabbed the galra soldiers arm, whipping him around to face him. 

“Where. Is. My. Lion?” He growled out, grip tightening on the galra soldier's suit. He was glaring into the galra soldiers yellow, glowing eyes. It was a look unfamiliar on the otherwise happy go-lucky blue paladin. The soldier blinked, before taking a step back, out of Lance’s grip. 

Lance growled again, curses spewing out of his mouth in his outrage. He couldn’t get to Blue. Blue was in danger. Where is Blue? Where is Blue? Where is Blue? Where is Blue? He turned and punched the wall, not even acknowledging the sting and pain in his fist.

Afterwards, he slumped to the ground, breath coming quickly. The sludge voice, belonging to the space witch, cackled from outside the prison cell bars. 

“Throwing a fit now, paladin of blue?” Haggar said. Lance whipped his head around to face her, startled by her appearance. She hadn’t been there a second ago. Could she teleport? His shocked switched into anger and he snarled. In her clawed hands, she was holding Keith by the neck of his armor. He was limp and didn’t seem like he was going to get up anytime soon. 

The witch flicked her wrist and Keith was in the same position he had been in when Lance was forced to fall asleep. The blue paladin stumbled over to his friend and stood over his body protectively. He glared at Haggar, daring her to try anything else. The bitch only laughed and walked away, leaving the guard to do his job. 

He dropped to his knees once she was out of sight, taking in Keith’s appearance. He looked relatively normal, other than the bags under his eyes. Oh, and the purple speckles on his skin around a puncture wound on the back of his neck. 

Wait.

Lance began to panic, looking around wildly like that get the rest of team Voltron to bust through the walls. He didn’t really know what to do. His friend, whom of which came out of galra decent, was turning purple. What had they done to him?

Keith groaned, blinking his eyes up and staring at Lance, who was freaking out so badly he hadn’t even notice Keith begin to move. He noticed only when Keith began to sit up.

“Keith!” Lance said, freezing. Wow, he’d called Keith’s name a lot recently. 

“You don’t need to yell,” Keith mumbled, rubbing his neck. “I can hear just fine, you know.” He hadn’t even said it that loudly. Something was weird, that’s for sure. Keith’s voice wasn’t it’s normal red. Instead, very strangely, it was purple. It still tasted like the comforting strawberries Lance missed focusing on in his free time. He hadn’t had any free time, recently. 

“Keith, what do you last remember?” Lance asked, voice small and filled with worry. 

“I remember being dragged out of here, then strapped to some table,” he mumbled. “And then I woke up here, with you freaking out like an idiot above me.” Lance smiled sheepishly, then snapped back to attention. He had to tell Keith. He had to. It was what any good friend would do. It wasn’t like he was nervous or anything.

“Keith,” Lance said, cautiously, “you’re turning purple.” 

Keith stared, then freaked the fuck out.

“I’m fucking what?!” He screamed, looking like he was about to combust with only the thought. He bared his teeth, showing off the canines that were sharper than ever, like fangs, that hadn’t been that sharp before. 

“And you have fangs, too, apparently,” Lance said, swallowing audibly. 

\-----  
The next time Keith disappeared, Lance was awake. They were sitting together in silence, Lance taking in the fact that Keith was gradually growing even more purple and galra looking, and Keith accepting the fact that he wasn’t going to look human anymore. Then the witch came again. They both jumped to their feet, growling. Except Keith sounded more animalistic than his comrade. Lance stood in front of Keith protectively, like the red paladin had done for him so many times since they got there. 

The witch only laughed, snapping her fingers. Lance felt the warm body heat on his back disappear and snarled. He leaped at her, grabbing her by the hair. She didn’t flinch, bite back, groan, or anything. She only stared at him with that wicked grin, like she’d expected him to do so.

“Where the fuck. Is. My. Lion?!” He ground out, gripping her hair in his fist as tight as he could. If he could get to his lion, he could get to Keith, he could get to the others. She grinned, silence being his only answer. He opened his mouth again to bite out something else when the guard stepped up and forced him away from Haggar. 

Keith was returned to him three hours later, looking more purple than he had been, and more exhausted. Lance held him tightly until he woke up, afraid that if he let go for even a moment, someone was going to reach in those metal bars and steal up his friend again. They had done it enough for him to be worried about it. 

This time, Keith’s ears were different. They were fuzzy, like all the other galra’s ears. The purple hadn’t spread any further than his ears and down his neck. There was a stripe of purple down his back, but it wasn’t spreading any more. It had stayed like that each time, so Lance was pretty confident in the fact that it wouldn’t spread anymore. But then again, Keith had come back with purple ears that he didn’t have before. 

Anything could happen, right?

\-----  
It was dark this time around. So dark, in fact, that Lance could barely see Keith laying across from him. They were lying together near the back of the prison cell because it got cold and Keith was a furnace. And sleeping together was always comforting, so what did it matter? They usually ended up doing it on those nights where one of them would creep out of their room and to the others when feeling upset about something, anyway. 

“Keith,” Lance said, pulling the thin blanket the guard had thrown at him about an hour ago tighter around himself. “You awake?”

“Yes,” came back the sleepy reply. “I don’t think I even can sleep anymore.” 

“Me neither,” Lance said, softly

“What’s up with you?” Keith asked, just as softly. They turned to face each other. Keith looked tired. The now ever-present bags under his eyes weren’t going to go away at this rate. Not sleeping wasn’t helping them, either. 

“Nothing much I just,” Lance said, pausing to sigh, “I want them to just bust through the walls.” He didn’t have to specify who he meant when he said ‘them’. Keith knew. “I also want my lion.” 

“Your lion? You can’t feel your lion either?” His voice was riddled with anxiety, turning a dark purple color. The reminder that Keith’s voice wasn’t red anymore almost made him cry. It was easy to ignore if he was talking normally.

“No.” 

The silence stretched uncomfortably. It was strange. Strange now that they only had each other for company. They always came to each other anyway, but there was always the comfort that they _could have_ gone to someone else if they’d felt like it. That wasn’t there now. Lance felt the tears build at the thought.

“Keith,” he choked out, gripping the blanket tight. “What if we don’t get back?” Keith didn’t answer. Lance searched his eyes for answers, but came up short.

“What if we don’t get back?” Keith repeated, slowly, quietly. “Now that’s a question.” He laughed humorlessly. “I don’t really know.”

The response actually did make Lance cry. He felt the tears fall and immediately went to wipe them away. Crying in front of anyone, even Keith, was still a no-no. It was something his pride wouldn’t allow. 

“Because we’re going to get back,” Keith said, voice a calm purple. The voice was still strawberry sweet. It's normal sweetness. It's comforting sweetness. Lance tried to stop crying, truly, he did. But he couldn’t. Keith didn’t say anything more after that, only threw an arm around him, pulling him to his own body and letting him hide his face in his neck. 

Soon after he calmed down enough, he felt Keith’s breaths slow to sleep. He fell into sleep to the soothing sound of Keith’s calm breaths. 

\-----  
The next time he woke, it was to Keith screeching. He jolted up, just in time to watch Keith get dragged out of their cell, kicking and screaming curses. Alone. Lance was alone again. He curled up in the spot Keith had just been, taking comfort in the leftover warmth and the faint scent of the strawberry boy.

\-----  
When Keith returned, his voice no longer tasted like strawberries. 

Lance cried again. Keith said nothing, knowing that his voice would only make it worse. He only held him as he cried, thinking about how contagious Lance’s tears were. Lance wasn’t even sure he could remember the taste or color of the other’s voices, either. 

\-----  
“So what does my voice taste like?”

“Nothing. It used to taste like strawberries. Now it doesn’t taste like anything.”

\-----  
Keith being taken away happened even more than it did before. Except he wouldn’t come back even more purple, he would come back with pink, tender scars on his skin. Like someone had tortured him then healed him over and over again. Which was probably what happened. Keith wouldn’t talk about it. 

Whenever Lance brought it up, Keith would tense up. His breath would come quick, he would curl in on himself, he would shake. Lance had enough of them to know those were symptoms of a panic attack and had stopped asking after it happened a second time. When they did happen, the panic attacks, Lance would hold the galra boy whose tears would seep into his armor and say nothing, the same thing Keith had done for him twice now. 

Life was bad. Not as bad as it could be, but bad.

\-----  
This went on for months. Maybe it had only been a week or two. It felt like a long time. Lance wasn’t really sure anymore. Somewhere in between Keith being ripped out his hands over and over and being stuck in a metal cage, he forgot his sense of time. Then one day, Haggar decided to change it up.

They had been huddled together in a corner, fighting off the cold of the cells. (“The prison was in an ice box, I swear!”) Haggar stepped through the door of the cell, moving towards them with purpose. They didn’t try to run to the open door, they’d tried that one too many times and knew all too well what would have happened if they had. 

Usually, she would come in the room, pick Keith up, and drag him down the hallway while he kicked and screeched. Then Lance would spend the next couple hours or so listening to the sound of Keith’s screams. This time, she reached for Lance. He froze, not really knowing what to do. Keith hissed at her, jumping in front of the blue paladin.

“We had a deal,” he growled to her, crouching over Lance protectively. A deal?

“Deals are made to be broken,” was all she said before snapping her fingers and suddenly Lance was being dragged down the hallway. He didn’t fight. He just let himself be dragged. He was too distracted by Keith’s enraged howl down the hall and then the sound of Keith’s voice chanting curses at the person dragging him.

Haggar dragged him down the hallways for a while, the sudden turning making him a bit nauseous. They stopped, after a few minutes, in front of a metal door. Haggar dragged him through this metal door and stood in the entry like she was feeling nostalgic about the room. 

Lance wanted to cry again. The room was scary. It was a dark grayish purple, different torture devices for every species hanging off the wall. There was a table in the middle. It was dark purple and splattered with blood. Lance stared, knowing who’s blood it was. 

_That’s a lot of blood…_ he thought. 

Haggar dragged him over to the table and strapped him down. The way the straps were made his hands rest on the sides of his head, his feet spread away from each other. 

“The blue lion,” Haggar said. Lance choked on the taste of sludge. “Is the most accepting of all the lions. It will let almost anyone pilot it. The other paladins have probably already replaced you.” 

Lance tried to ignore the sting in his heart at the image of Blue letting someone else pilot her while he was still alive, at the other’s forming Voltron with a complete stranger.

“Now that I’ve put that out there, where to start?”

\-----  
Lance screamed. Haggar only dug the knife deeper in his arm. She left it there. He quieted, being reduced to only tired panting. He was covered in blood from the hours of being hurt and being healed over and over and over and over again.

At this point, he pretty much just wanted to die. Or curl up with Keith. Because Keith’s presence was the only thing of home Lance felt he had left. Keith was home. Keith was the reminder that Voltron needed them because he was an amazing pilot. Lance may just be the seventh wheel, but Keith cared about him and Keith was needed for Voltron. 

Keith did care about him, right?

\-----  
Lance wasn’t sure when that witch took him off the table and put him back in the cell with Keith. He wasn’t sure when he passed out from the pain, either. All he knew was that he was surrounded by Keith’s scent and body heat.

Keith was curled around him in their makeshift bed, hands in Lance’s hair and mumbling things into his skin.

“I’m sorry. So sorry,” Keith mumbled. “I tried. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Lance took his hand, sending him a reassuring smile. 

He would be fine, now that Keith was there.

\-----  
It happened when Lance was strapped down to that bloody table again. The ship rumbled. Haggar paused in her movements to cut another line down Lance’s arm. Then a voice, deep and gravelly, came over the coms. 

“Haggar,” it said. “Lord Zarkon requests your presence,” Haggar said nothing, only set the knife down on the tray next to the table and briskly walked out. Once she was out of the room, a familiar energy touched his mind, icy-cool and gentle. He wanted to cry in relief, but he didn’t have any tears left. He was bloody, gross, covered in both closed and open scars and was out of tears. How nice.

The door to the torture room slid open again and Lance’s breath hitched in his throat, stomach curling in dread. It was a galra soldier. They usually weren’t allowed in here so it must be a special occasion. The soldier walked closer, calmly. Lance flinched and tried to pull away, but he was restrained just like he had been those last few hundred times he tried to run from Haggar.

The galra soldier hesitated, seeing his flinch. Then they relaxed again and reached up to take off their mask. Lance froze when familiar silver hair and pink markings were revealed. He was hallucinating, right? There was no way the princess was standing in front of him. 

“Allura?” He called weakly, not having the strength to speak any louder. She shushed him, eyes filled with grief and concern. She ripped off the straps, scooping him up once he slumped to the floor. He had never wanted to cry from hearing Allura’s sweet pink voice, but he did then.

“Let’s get out of here, Lance.” 

“Keith,” he said, feeling weaker than he probably was. He didn’t need to say anymore. She knew. She had known. She had already been making those difficult turns to get to their cell. 

He knew they were just around the corner when Keith’s angry shouting greeted his ears. He smiled. He felt Allura freeze when she saw Keith. The silence was deafening. 

“Keith?” He called, trying to move in Allura’s hold to look at him. Had he gotten worse? No. When Lance finally got a good enough position to see him, Keith looked just the same as he had when he was dragged away, only less angry and more shocked. He was frozen in place, in a weird position. It looked like he had been trying to kick the door to the cell off. Lance grinned as widely as he could at him. Then he turned to the princess. “Hey, ‘lura, we need to go.” 

That set Allura back into motion. She bent the bars apart, enough for Keith to step through. Then Lance was passed to Keith, who held him tightly, and they were running. They ran through what seemed like an endless amount of hallways. Somewhere towards the end, the alarms in the ship started going off. Lance hugged Keith tight, trying to ignore the way his heart pounded in fear. 

Before any soldiers or drones actually got to them, they were out of the ship. It seemed a little too easy, but he wasn’t complaining. Blue, Red, Black, Green and Yellow were all waiting on them. Blue’s relief, love, reassurance, her everything touched his mind, full force. The comms on his helmet made a staticky noise before the ecstatic shouting of his team greeted his ears. 

“Alright!” 

“Lance! Keith! Oh my god!”

“They’re alive!”

Lance smiled into Keith's hair. It felt amazing to hear their voices again. It felt like a dream. 

He still had tears to shed.

\-----  
Keith and Lance sat together, huddled in each others warmth, this time on the castle ship. They had gotten the chance to change once the wormhole jump was over, so they weren’t in bloody armor anymore. They had both been cleaned up and stuck in a healing pod for a varga, so they were healthy. They both had tear tracks on their face. They both had new scars. They were both sitting in front of their team, their family. They were grinning widely, staring up at the others and each other. 

“Keith? Lance?” It was Shiro. His gray voice light and worried, concerned. Lance had missed the taste of blueberries. Keith took Lance’s hand, squeezing it tightly. Lance returned the gesture. “Are you two alright?” 

“Never better,” they said, eyes wet again. Pidge was the first to launch themselves at the pair. They were crying, ugly and loud, into Lance’s shoulder. They were gripping Keith’s shirt and wailing.

“I thought I’d lost even more family,” they mumbled into Lance’s shirt once they had calmed down. Their voice, usually bright green and tasting like the most prominent cherries, was light green and a sweet cherry flavor. They were sitting in between the two, gripping their shirts. 

Hunk had been crying since they got onto the ship.

“Hey you big, gassy genius,” Lance said, grinning. “Come get in here, buddy.” Hunk cried, sitting behind them. Shiro was close behind, sitting next to his little brother, who had never looked more like him in his life. He ruffled Keith’s hair, squeezing his shoulder. Allura came and sat beside Lance, leaning against him. He didn’t feel any of that attraction that he had before all this for her anymore. It was strange. Coran came over and swept the two in a hug. 

After all of it, they all sat together, basking in everyone’s energy. And if they noticed the blue and red paladin’s shoulders shaking with the force of their sobs, no one said a thing. 

\-----  
They laid together, in Lance’s bed, just staring at each other. They had both retired for the night a little under ten doboshes ago. Now, they stared at each other, taking in the very essence of the other. 

Then, the bed squeaked as Keith moved and there was a warm heat on Lance’s mouth. Keith was kissing him and it felt _great_. Long overdue, with all they’ve been through together, but great.

They kissed feverishly, all tongue and all teeth like they’d never get another chance, until they ran out of air. Then, once the gasping had considerably quieted, they kissed again. More gentle this time. This kiss was slow, steady, like the other person was a treasure. Like the other person was a precious item. 

When they separated, they didn’t say a thing. Keith held Lance close, running his fingers through his hair. There was silence between them, between their usual chatter, and that was okay. Lance had gotten used to it. Since the beginning of that whole shitfest, they’d gotten considerably quieter. Lance squeezed Keith’s waist, being shocked when a light pink voice, tasting like the sweetest strawberry Lance had ever tasted greeted his ears.

“I love you,” it whispered, and then it was gone. 

“I love you too,” Lance hummed.

\-----  
Lance woke up to Keith’s knife being pressed to his throat. He froze, thinking maybe all of it had been a dream and he was still in Haggar’s torture room until he realized it was his boyfriend above him. Keith’s breaths were heaving, hands shaky, ears flat on his head, eyes wide with terror.

“Keith,” Lance said, quietly. At the call of his name, Keith calmed down. His eyes focused on Lance’s, his ears perked, his breathing returned to normal. Lance’s heart was still beating out of his chest. 

Keith moved his knife away from Lance’s throat and threw it across the room. It banged loudly against the door. He hugged Lance tightly against his body, face hidden in the blue paladin’s shoulder. Lance returned the hug without hesitation, already used to Keith waking up and trying to kill him.

“I’m so sorry,” Keith mumbled, over and over, like he had done the first time Haggar had taken Lance into her torture room. “

“It’s okay,” Lance said. “You didn’t mean it. It’s okay. I love you.”

They weren’t okay, but they were getting better and that was enough. Some day they would be okay again, and Lance was more than happy to wait for that day with Keith by his side.

They were going to be happy together.

**Author's Note:**

> This honestly got away from me. It started out as just a stupid story all about fluff and love to rival all the langst and klangst in this goddamn fandom. Then it got angsty. So honestly I don't know what to tell you.
> 
> Plus most of this is dialogue which is kind of depressing? I don't know.


End file.
